"What--_that_?" she cried, snatching the specimen away from him and bursting into a nervous laugh. "That assay? Well, you are a greenie--it's nothing but barren white quartz!" "Oh, it is, eh?" he rejoined and gazed at her hectoringly. "You seem to know a whole lot about mineral." "Yes, I do," she boasted. "Death Valley Charley teaches me. I've learned how to pan, and everything. But that rock there--that's the barren quartz that the Paymaster ran into when the values went out of the ore. Old Charley knows all about it." "Yes, they all do," he observed and as his lip went up her eyes dilated suddenly in a panic. "Oh, you went to that school--I forgot all about it--where they study about the mines! Are you in the mining business now?" "Why, yes," he acknowledged, "but that doesn't make much difference. I find I can learn something from most everybody." "Well, of course, then," she stammered, "I shouldn't have said that; but the whole Paymaster dump is covered with that heavy quartz, and everybody knows it's barren. Are you just looking around or----" She hesitated politely and as he reached for another specimen she noticed a ring on his finger. It was of massive gold and, set in clutching claws, there were three stupendous diamonds. Not imitation stones nor small, off-colored diamonds, but brilliants of the very first water, clear as dew, yet holding in their hearts the faintest suggestion of blue. "Oh!" she gasped, and as he did not seem to notice, she drew her skirts away with a flourish. "I'm surprised," she mocked, "that you condescend to speak to us--of course you own your own mines!" "Nope," he replied, shrugging his shoulders at her sarcasm, "I'm nothing but a prospector, yet. And you don't need to be so surprised." "No!" she retorted, giving way to swift resentment. "I guess I don't--when you consider how you got your money. Here's Mother out cooking for you, and I'm the waiter; and you're traveling around in racing cars with thousand-dollar rings on your hands. But if old Honest John hadn't sold all his stock while he was advising my father to hold on----" "He did not!" "Yes, he did! He did, too! And now, after Father has been lost in Death Valley, and we have come down to this, your father writes over and offers to buy our stock for just the same as nothing. That's _my_ ring you're wearing, and the money that paid for it----" "Oh, all right then," he sneered, stripping off the ring and handing it abruptly over to her, "if it's your ring, take it! But don't you say my father----" "Well, he did," she declared, "and you can keep your old ring! It won't bring back my father--now!"